One woman's free associations on gender, politics, geekery, and more

This past weekend was pretty busy. I saw a friend’s dance recital, another friend’s show, had my final high school class (finally!) and, of course, went to play laser tag and went to an introductory pole dancing class. (What, you didn’t do laser tag and pole dancing this weekend?) Both were a lot of fun, but both were interesting examples of gendered behavior and – more surprisingly – brought up some unexpected gendered expectations I have for myself.

Laser tag brought up feelings of inadequacy as a man, even though I don’t want to be a man or to think of myself as ‘one of the boys.’

Pole dancing brought up major feelings of inadequacy as a woman, coupled with an unexpected desire to be sexy and eagerness to go along with instructions toward that end.